


watch me stumble over and over

by pensiveVisionary (hamburr)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 22:25:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7140086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamburr/pseuds/pensiveVisionary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not easy to pick yourself up after something terrible happens.</p>
<p>If you're really lucky, though, someone will come help you drag your ass off the ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	watch me stumble over and over

It's been almost two years, and you wish you weren't thinking about it so much. You'd thought it would get easier. It... hasn't, really.

You miss him. You loved him. You didn't think you'd be able to rekindle your relationship after twelve years apart, after twelve years of you mistrusting him. You didn't think he would love you after that.

But he did.

He never stopped.

Neither did you, and you know you're being too hard on yourself, trying to not hurt over this after two years, when twelve was never enough to make you stop loving him. You don't think you ever will. Even when you, like everyone in the Wizarding community, believed he was guilty, there had always been the tiniest spark of hope, of desperately wishing you were wrong.

Your wildest dreams came true-- he was innocent, and you found each other again, and you fell in love again. Well, not again. Differently, because you had both become vastly different people in your twelve-year separation, Sirius having to deal with the aftermath of his years in Azkaban, and you trying to figure out where to go with your life, always wandering from place to place, never able to hold a job, never able to be completely secure.

You found a home in each other.

 

No longer do you have that home, though.

And maybe that's why you're sitting here, in the kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place, having maybe consumed more firewhiskey than was wise and being maybe just a little too sentimental and definitely feeling overwhelmingly lonely. Usually there's more people around, and you have the antsy feeling that someone is about to--

With a clatter, the door opens, and Tonks bursts into the kitchen. She looks startled to see you; her eyes travel from you, to the mostly-empty bottle beside you, then back to your face. Her expression falls to concern, and she crosses the room to sit beside you.

"What's up?" she asks, and you sigh.

"Just thinking," you say.

"Ah, yes. Thinking," she says dryly, casting a significant look at the bottle of firewhiskey, eyebrows raised. "Would you like some company in your thinking?"

"It appears I'm going to whether I would like to or not," you say.

"Glad to know you care. I'm going to get something to-- _hm_ \--think about too, then, do you need anything else?" You shrug. "Well, gosh, you're decisive." She mutters a Summoning Charm; she has to catch the bottle that comes flying in midair, just before it would have smashed on the table.

"Nice catch."

"I try. Lots of practice," she says, pulling off the cap, settling back in her chair and looking at you. "So for real. What's up?"

"I told you. Just thinking."

"About Sirius?"

You frown at her. "I really don't think it's any of your business."

"Sure it's not, but you spend all your free time shut up in here and don't talk to anyone about anything, and I thought maybe instead of getting all drunk and maudlin by yourself, you could at least do it with someone else."

"I don't need your help," you mutter, frowning at the table.

"Don't you? Maybe not necessarily mine, okay, I get that, but I can't stand watching you isolate yourself and keep going on more and more dangerous missions and become increasingly self-destructive, it's _genuinely worrisome_ and I just wish you'd let someone in."

"I don't have anyone to let in," you say tensely. "Least of all you, how would you know what it's like--"

"He was my fucking cousin," interrupts Tonks, low and angry, and you immediately regret your statement. "--and I loved him too, certainly not like you did, but that doesn't mean I don't feel his loss just as deeply. And I'm scared you're going to follow him, if you keep up the way you are."

"Would it even matter? Ultimately, I'm just another piece in the game."

"Of course it matters! It matters more than anything, Remus, you are a genuinely good person and you have so much to offer! I know it has to be so hard when the world treats you like your contributions don't matter, but, look at the Order. Hell, look at Harry! He looks up to you, you know. And you-- you do so much good work, and you're so smart, and you're so talented, and-- and it would break my heart if you died." She holds your gaze, and you can't make yourself look away. She is brilliantly intense, and for the first time it hits you how much like Sirius she really is. You find yourself speechless.

"Please take care of yourself, Remus," she says. "I don't care if you do it for me, or yourself, or whoever you do it for. Just. Please."

She continues to stare you down, until you finally give a tiny nod.

"Thank you," she says.

The two of you are quiet for a while.

"Remus?" she finally says tentatively, leaning closer to you. "What are you thinking?"

"It's harder than I remembered," you say quietly, "being on your own, and it doesn't get any easier."

"Yeah," she says, and you turn towards her, finding your face to be only about an inch from hers. Your stomach drops, and you feel like you're about to make a decision you're going to sorely regret.

You were right, about sorely regretting your decisions; you sit up in bed the next morning, overwhelmingly dismayed. Tonks, now awake, blinks at you.

"I'm sorry," you say, and she sighs.

"I had really hoped those wouldn't be the first words out of your mouth," she says, sitting up as well, running a hand through her hair.

"I am, though. I didn't-- I was-- I have no excuse."

"Neither do I," she says. "And yet, here we are."

"So what do we do now?" you ask.

"Move on with our lives, I suppose, unless you have another option?"

"Not really," you admit. "I'm sorry."

"Quit apologizing, you don't have any more reason to than I do. I could've stopped it at any point just as easily as you. Look, let's just get dressed and get some breakfast and we can move on."

"Okay," you say, trying to not sound too miserable. "I just-- didn't want to hurt you."

"I didn't want to hurt you either," she says, and pats the back of your hand. "We were both drunk and stupid and lonely, and we got carried away. It doesn't have to mean more than that. I understand why it happened, and I don't hold it against you. I just-- hope we can still be friends." She looks so sad when she says that, it hurts your heart.

"Of course," you say. "Of course."

Somehow, the two of you become a lot closer after that incident. Instead of avoiding her because you don't know how to deal with her feelings for you, the two of you are much more comfortable talking about it. You will sit and talk for hours, sometimes about completely pointless things, sometimes really deep and emotional things.

One evening, you are in the kitchen together, and Tonks seems a little on edge, like something is bothering her.

"What's on your mind?" you ask, and she anxiously twirls her wand between her fingers, then startles when it accidentally shoots gold sparks.

"Um," she says, and sighs. "Wow! I really did not think of a good way to say this."

"Oh no," you say, having a very good feeling of what is coming next and wishing you didn't.

"Oh no is right," she says. "I'm afraid we may not be able to just up and move on from that night."

"Oh no," you say again, as it sinks in further. "Oh _no_. No, you're fucking with me, Tonks, it can't be-- you can't be-- no, I'm-- Tonks, I'm a _werewolf_ , the chances of that being passed on are outrageously high, please tell me you're joking."

"I am not joking," she says. "I'm willing to-- to do this by myself--"

"No-- _no_ , you don't have to do that, I'll do anything I can to help, fuck, I'll marry you if you want me to, I'll take full responsibility for my part in this, you will not have to do this alone," you say, taking her hand in both of yours. She gives you a shaky smile.

"I'll hold you to that," she says, in a teasing tone, but you know she isn't joking at all.

"Good," you say, "because I meant it."

"All of it?"

"All of it."

"Then you'd better track down a ring, Remus Lupin, because we are going to have quite some explaining to do."

**Author's Note:**

> i know jk said that this is not what happened but, shh, i don't actually care
> 
> (comments are greatly appreciated! c: thanks for reading!)


End file.
